


checking that the coast is clear

by frozennightmare



Series: 50th Fixits [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 50th anniversary, F/M, Spoilers for Episode: The Day of the Doctor, can be implied as pre-whouffle, fixit fic, read into it as you'd like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozennightmare/pseuds/frozennightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's someone else with him, that Doctor they don't speak of, a specter Clara can't see...</p>
            </blockquote>





	checking that the coast is clear

**Author's Note:**

> i plan to write a much longer one, just had to get this out of my system. starts just after Clara opens the cell door.  
> also the Warrior=8.5  
> once again i'm stealing fic titles from run it's a gorgeous song ok  
> literally written in forty minutes and terribly rough. ill clean it up for the longer one.

 "Didn’t any of you think to try the door? It was unlocked." Clara rolled her eyes as it crashed into the wall, mentally capturing the expression on the skinny one’s face forever. Perfect.

"We-"

"Uh-"

"Honestly, all three of you are daft." Clara unbuckles the vortex manipulator from her wrist and hands it to the one with the bowtie as she stalks into the cell. "Don’t know how you’ve managed to survive 1200 years. Tell me, how have you managed it? And which one of you is which, cause if you’ll remember, you kind of ran out on me."

"I-uh-Clara, you should know, you met them."

"I don’t exactly remember! Let me guess, skinny teen dreamboy is the one right before you, number Ten, and grumpy old grandpa is the one we don’t talk about?"

"Dreamboy?" Ten scoffs loudly, pointing at himself. "I’m _dreamboy_?”

"Oh, I like her." Rose whispers behind the Warrior, smile tinting her face.

"I imagine you would." The Warrior still keeps a careful eye on his older selves; can’t have them hearing talking to himself. Or to an interface. Whatever she is.

"Yes! You’re dreamboy. Or Tenny. I’m not sure yet. Doctor, how exactly are we going to get out? That vortex manipulator’s only good one-way, and I haven’t a clue where the TARDIS is." Clara leans back against the open doorframe, then realizes leaving it open is probably really stupid and swings it shut.

"The vortex manipulator is only good for one-way time travel.It still functions just fine as a teleport.” Ten sighs.

"I should know, I disabled it every time Jack came around." It’s a little creepy, how Ten and her Doctor pick up the ends of each other’s sentences. Yes, they’re the same person, but it’s almost like they share one giant mind. Maybe Time Lords are telepathic. Clara wouldn’t be surprised.

"So we just locate the TARDIS and teleport there, yeah? Where do you even think it is?"

"Probably still in that field." Rose is still half an inch behind the Warrior, watching everything with that soft little smile.

"Unless Elizabeth had the sensibility to move it." He feels obligated to respond to her, to indulge in some form of conversation, considering he’s the only one who can see her. Hell, the Warrior isn’t even sure she’s real, if there even is a Moment interface, or if it’s just some figment of his tormented imagination.

He shoves himself forcefully off the dungeon pillar, watching the bumbling idiots do more talk than work, ready to take control when Clara grabs his arms.

"Scuse me. One second." She keeps flicking her eyes over his shoulder, right where Rose is, almost as if she can see her. "Who are you talking to?"

"I wasn’t talking to anyone." It’d sound daft, talking to an AI that no one else can see, and he’s desperate to be the mature one here.

"No, but you were. You keep staring off into space, like there’s something I can’t see." Clara bounces on her tippy toes, trying to find something in the shadows. "Who is it, who’s-there?"

"Oh, alright." Rose twists a finger into her curly mass as she materializes, and Clara’s eyes go massive. She opens her mouth to say something, to shout for the Doctor, but the woman puts a finger to her lips. "Don’t shout. They can’t see me."

"But I can-why-why-who are you?"

"I don’t want them to." She hasn’t budged from her spot behind the Warrior, and it is in that that Clara realizes what she’s doing- making it seem like she’s talking to him instead of someone who’s not even there. "My name is the Bad Wolf."

"That’s not your real name, there is no way-"

"I’m not going to say my real name, too many things that could happen. I don’t want you getting their attention. But you really don’t recognize me?"

"Never seen you before in my life." Clara is trying to keep her face as flat as possible but _oh my stars_ is it hard.

Rose’s face falls a bit at this, abandoning her post as she wanders over to the bench, sitting down with her hands resting on her thighs, staring off into space. The Warrior mirrors her almost creepily. sitting to the left of her while Clara settles on the right. He’s very protective of her, his mysterious woman, or at least feeling relieved that she isn’t a figment of his imagination.

"I thought-" Rose starts, voice cutting off. "I thought, after Sarah Jane, he would have at least mentioned me-but he can’t have, you don’t even know the name."

"Well, you won’t tell me that, so I can’t really-"

"No, not that name. My other one."

"What, the Bad Wolf?"

At this Ten pricks his head from his excited conversation with the other Doctor- well, in the scheme of things, Clara guesses that makes her Doctor Eleven- and stares Clara down for a moment before deciding he must have misheard things and turning away again.

"Shhh!" whisper-shouts Rose. "They could hear you."

"I don’t understand, what’s so bad about them knowing you’re here?”

"Has he mentioned- anyone? Martha? Donna?" Clara can't help but notice how fast she veers the conversation around, she’s nearly as good at avoiding a topic as the Doctor.

“Martha, loads of times. The Brigadier, Polly, Jamie, Tegan- he’s talked about a lot. Donna, a little bit, although he never tells me what happened to her.”

"But never me." Rose bites down on her bottom lip. "Doctor, what’s happened to you?"

"You still haven't answered my question." Clara is getting more than a little aggravated now; if there’s something important about er she wants to know it. "Who are you? Why won’t you let them see you?"

"It’s been a very long time for your Doctor.” she answers. “I don’t know if he could handle it. It seems he’s forgotten me.”

"And what about the other one, huh? I assume he’s your Doctor.”

"What is this with possessing Doctors?" The Warrior cuts across the thickness with a look at Rose. "You’re real? I thought you were simply the Moment interface."

"Of course I’m real, War. I simply said that’s who I was cause I didn’t want to mess with your time stream. Appearing and disappearing at will isn’t exactly a difficult trick.” At this her eyes flash gold. “Clara, the-my Doctor, he-he thinks he’s left me somewhere. Somewhere safe, and happy, and he had to give up a lot to get me there, and the moment he sees me, he’s going to think it was all for nothing. It’s not, I’m still safe there, it’s a bit- more complicated than that, but-“

"What’s the plan, just stay hidden the entire time?"

"The plan was not to run into them at all, but he insisted on seeing his future.” She elbows the Warrior rather harshly.

"You don’t want to hurt him. I get it. But if you mean half as much to him as you’re implying, I should think you at least owe it to him to tell him you’re here." Clara’s voice raises by accident, and Ten slowly looks over his shoulder. Clara is leaning almost across the Warrior, gesturing empathetically at thin air.

"Who are you talking to?" he asks, and Eleven becomes distracted as well. Clara jumps to her feet, the Warrior standing much slower beside her."She was talking to me." he rumbles.

"No, no you weren’t ." Eleven exchanges a glance with his younger self. "The Warrior was just sitting there, you were talking to nothing."

"She was talking to me." Rose winks at Clara before the air twists again, becoming really and truly solid in the eyes of everyone present.

Clara has a hard time even beginning to figure out their expressions. Eleven steps back and squares himself off, a sad smile playing on his face, eyes just looking absolutely haunted and watering more than Clara will ever get him to admit. “Of course.” he mutters. “Who else.”

Ten just absolutely _explodes._

His eyes go wide with a mixture of dead shock, horror, and joy, whole body a wild card, pointing a finger at Rose. “You can’t- you shouldn’t be here!”

"Doctor-" She pushes out from between the Warrior and Clara, stopping a few feet in front of him like she dare not go any closer.

"No-but-you should be in the other world, you were safe-“

"Doctor, listen to me!"

"What happened, why are you here? What’s-what’s-"

"Doctor, _please._ ” she begs, and he finally shuts up, still staring at her like she hung the stars and blew up the universe at the same time. “I swear, nothing’s wrong. I’m not-I’m not even that Rose.”

"Oh, and there’s more than one now?" Eleven cuts across, still not able to look at her.

"Oh, don’t get like that, you did it to me first! It was all Clara’s idea anyway."

"I did it first?" baffles Ten.

Clara is a bit more occupied with the second half. "What do you mean, my idea ?"

"Satellite Five." starts Rose."There was a version of you there, Clara, a version who remembered, who hid when the Daleks came and waited till I turned them into dust. My mind was too jumbled to see it clearly, but you had seen the Doctor’s entire timeline, you had seen a time where he had absolutely no one left, a time when he needed someone more than anything else in the galaxy. We couldn’t just leave him, could we? This body is Time Lord. I’ve got all the same memories as the real Rose, same thoughts, but I was Loomed instead of born, for the sole purpose that in your darkest hour, you wouldn’t die alone. I couldn’t possibly leave you alone. My Doctor.”

Her voice cracks on the last two words.

"You’re still Rose."

"If the Metacrisis is still the Doctor, then I suppose I am." She goes to say something else after that, but it’s cut off by the bone-crushing hug he sweeps her into, the little bubble of happy tears that spills off his lips, kissing her forehead with a delighted smile. “I’ve missed you.”

"You’re hopeless without me. What- your _hair_ -“

"Well, I suppose it is a bit flat. And very clever of you, pulling the same one on me."

"Oh go on then." says Clara, beckoning Eleven with a sweep of her arm. "Don’t stay all mopey in the corner."

"This isn’t my place."

"Hey! Bowtie!" Rose twists around out of the hug so Ten’s arm is situates firmly around her waist. "You really think you’re gonna be allowed to look pitiful all day?"

Ten relinquishes Rose just long enough for Eleven wrap his arms around her. There is something less joyous about him, more sad, because he knows in the end he will just have to say goodbye again.

"Rose Tyler," he smiles, "At the end of all things, it will always be you."


End file.
